Judge Sets Royalty Fee To Be Paid By Nintendo On Every 3DS Sold

Nintendo has been on the receiving end of a patent lawsuit from Tomita Technologies. The focus is the glasses-free 3D technology present in the Nintendo 3DS and 3DS XL handhelds. Following a jury decision, a United States federal judge has now set the amount that Nintendo must pay Tomita for each unit sold.

The judgment amounts to 1.82 percent of the wholesale price of each unit sold throughout the handheld’s life. This is on top of a $15 million damage award that Nintendo has already been ordered to provide.

The presiding judge rejected a flat rate amount as it would have represented an “unearthed windfall” for Tomita. The percentage-based award means that the royalty will scale with the price of the 3DS and 3DS XL, both of which will no doubt drop in the future.

Our TakeThis is ruling is similar to the one we saw during the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 generation when Immersion sued both Microsoft and Sony over rumble in the controllers. Patent law is a powerful thing in the United States, even though we sometimes have a hard time weeding out the patent trolls from the truly wronged parties.

So with roughly 30 million 3ds systems in the world and maybe another 10 million to be sold, the company could very well make a lot of money. This is truly bad for nintendo. I really hope they pull through as ps4 vs. xbone would be truly horrible without a family friendly console in the run.

I'm not exactly a genius when it comes to the law...but it sounds like Nintendo is only losing $3-4 dollars per 3DS system sold...and that probably doesn't count the 2DS. Still, this is a shame to hear. Patent laws are a tricky thing, and they seem very easy to abuse.